Even some skeptics of congestion pricing who have to pay are starting to become converts.

“If I’m going to be completely honest, I was a very, very, very much against congestion pricing,” said one driver exiting the Lincoln Tunnel from New Jersey. “But now that I drive in everyday, I’d pay $10 to save about an hour on my commute every day.”

What You Need To Know

  • About 30,000 fewer vehicles drove below 60th Street per weekday in January, including the untolled FDR Drive and West Side Highway

  • That number is based on the MTA's baseline of 583,000 vehicles entering the Central Business District

  • Travel times into the CBD via all crossings in the a.m. rush have reduced between 10% and 48%
  • Data showed drivers saved time on approaches to several crossings including on the Long Island Expressway and New Jersey Turnpike

That driver was behind the wheel of one of the 553,000 vehicles entering the Central Business District (CBD) — the area below 60th Street — on an average weekday this January. That’s about 30,000 fewer vehicles than the MTA’s baseline of 583,000, and includes the untolled FDR Drive and West Side Highway.

Travel times have also sped up to get into the CBD. At the Brooklyn crossings, travel time is down between 10% and 30%, at the Queens crossings it’s down between 15% and 30% and from New Jersey, between 17% and 48%. That 48% is at the Holland Tunnel specifically.

“People are saving time, not just on the bridges or in the tunnels to get into Manhattan,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said. “But on the LIE as they head in and the New Jersey Turnpike as they head into the Holland or Lincoln Tunnel.”

That means express buses are faster as well. However, the MTA would not give data on routes through the Hugh Carey Tunnel, but excluding that, they say on a handful of routes, the average time savings has been over 10 minutes, with some buses shaving almost 20 minutes off their runs.

On the streets of Lower Manhattan, a look at eastbound Canal Street in the p.m. peak, travel time was down 30%. There were some spots, however, like 42nd Street and 23rd Street, where the improvements were not up as much as predicted.

“When you’re seeing such dramatic times saving, and savings in speeds, and it’s not just in the CBD or CRZ,” Lieber said. “That’s provable lived experience. I’m not disappointed at all.”

As for revenue, those numbers will be out next month when the information from taxis and for-hire vehicles come in. But the traffic data will be publicly available on the MTA’s open data website starting Thursday and will be updated weekly.